01 March 2017
Kuala Lumpur: CIMB-Principal Asset Management Berhad (“CIMB-Principal”) kicked off 2017 on a positive note, declaring gross distribution totalling RM51 million for 17 of its funds which include CIMB Islamic Balanced Growth Fund, CIMB-Principal Income Plus Balanced Fund, CIMB-Principal Strategic Bond Fund, CIMB-Principal Bond Fund, CIMB-Principal Balanced Fund and CIMB Islamic Equity Aggressive Fund.
It also announced a commendable increase in its total Asset Under Management (“AUM”) in 2016 despite the challenging economic environment. CIMB-Principal’s Group AUM increased by 7.6% Year-on-Year (“Y-o-Y”) to RM67.6 billion1, while the Private Retirement Scheme (“PRS”) segment increased significantly by 27% Y-o-Y to RM343.0 million for the period ending 31 December 2016.
Munirah Khairuddin, Chief Executive Officer of CIMB-Principal said, “We are pleased to reward investors with a RM51 million distribution for 17 of our funds. The increase in our AUM is a reflection of customer confidence in our calculated and diversified asset allocation strategy in the right markets, backed by our global experience, deep market insights and technical expertise. Our track record is a testament to our resilience to deliver through good and bad times. We remain confident of our continued growth in 2017 and we are focused on our long term plan to further strengthen our value proposition to our customers.
“We expect good performance for our funds this year. While we foresee continued volatility and uncertainty in the global financial markets, growth dynamics in the Asia Pacific region will continue to improve, and 2017 earnings is expected to be around 10%, which is a significant turnaround from negative growth in the past few years,” Munirah added.
Two of CIMB-Principal’s regional funds - CIMB Islamic Asia Pacific Equity Fund and CIMB-Principal Asian Equity Fund - just won “Best Equity Asia Pacific ex-Japan, 5 years performance” award from The Edge Thomson Reuters Lipper Malaysia Fund Awards 2017. At the global front, CIMB-Principal Global Titans Fund won – for the third year in a row - the Edge Thomson Reuters Lipper Malaysia Fund Awards 2017 for “Best Equity Global performance award” for the 3 years and 5 years categories. CIMB-Principal Global Titan Fund is an equity fund that invests in big-cap companies in the US, Europe and Japan, with a medium to long term growth outlook. Since its inception in 2005, the fund has delivered a cumulative annual total return of 65.95% for financial year ending 31 March 2016.
